About “Strawberry Fields Forever”

One of The Beatles’s undisputed masterpieces, “Strawberry Fields Forever” (1967) was written as an homage to John Lennon’s childhood in Liverpool. Lennon often described it as one of his most personal songs, and was hesitant to sing it at first. His apparent vulnerability brings an ethereal quality to his singing. The song was one of The Beatles’s most complicated recordings to date, and made use of a string quartet arrangement written by their classically trained producer, George Martin.

The song also makes use of a Mellotron, an early form of piano keyboard that could play realistic instrument sounds via recordings on magnetic tape. (Modern technology has given us keyboards that offer those same instrument sounds as built-in settings, with better sound quality.)

“Strawberry Fields Forever” was originally intended to appear on the band’s seminal Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, but was instead released the same year (1967) as a double-A side with Paul McCartney’s “Penny Lane.” George Martin has publicly stated that taking both “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever” off of Sgt. Pepper’s was the biggest mistake of his career. Both songs are named after sites in Liverpool and are steeped in childhood and English nostalgia.

The song’s infamous “Cranberry sauce” outro, misheard by some fans as “I buried Paul,” became the locus of widespread rumors and conspiracy theories, making “Strawberry Fields Forever” one of the most obsessively analyzed songs in music history.